Creature Comforts
by This Is Sarcasm
Summary: Even amidst war, tragedy, strife, and personal problems, each member of the Normandy crew, from Shepard, to Tali, and even to Javik and Wrex, have those creature comforts, those tiny things that make each day just a little more bearable; be it a simple cup of coffee, or grind core at ninety decibels while binge watching all the MCU films, here they all are.
1. Javik

There was no sign as to whom had left it.

He scoured the whole room, but still could not sense who had invaded his sanctuary in Port Cargo. What he could sense, was the menagerie of people who had been in and out over the last two days, both for the retrofits, and to clear out the CAT-6 mercenaries. Perhaps that was the purpose, the genius of the perfectly-timed infiltration; they _knew_ he wouldn't be able to make out who'd set it there, or had counted on that being the case.

Or perhaps they had counted on the fact that strange drink was still messing with his head, a resounding migraine that was nigh on unbearable, and made using his sixth sense absolutely nauseating.

Javik was facing a master of infiltration. They hadn't even written the note themselves, so there was no way for him to compare the handwriting to the rest of the crew. He glared at it scathingly, both tempted by the offering that had been left by the mysterious infiltrator, and suspecting that it may very well be a trap.

Sitting on the desk below the monitor, quite innocently, was a seafood plate.

 **Noticed you were partial to it during the party.**

 **P.S.** ** _No_** **, it's not poisoned, so eat the damn stuff or I'll space you for wasting it.**

 **P.P.S. I knew that whole "I'll poison you if I eat near you" thing was bullshit. Next time, choose something more believable; you're too honest when you're drunk.**

It had to be a member of the crew. Nobody else would know(then again, even _he_ didn't know) what happened during the party. He could remember taking interest in some sort of beverage... then it was all a blur. _Maybe_ he had eaten something? And _maybe_ he had liked it? Something like that. But he couldn't remember what...

He strode over to wash his hands of the party ichor from the previous evening, and cast the food another glance. He looked away.

Would eating make the migraine go away?

He stopped himself from looking.

The turian had suggested water.

He barely managed to stop himself from glancing.

The quarian had said something about painkillers. Lots of them. Multiple varieties. But he still had doubts about the reliability of this cycle's medicines.

That _smell_ , though!

He turned his head away again.

It reminded him of Rannoch, actually. The way the scents of salt an water, untarnished by the smell of Reaper fire and rotting corpses, had permeated the air. He'd been near oceans before, but never like that. Ironic, considering his people's history as seafarers.

All four eyes were locked onto the food. He looked away with purpose.

Could _one_ bite really hurt that much?

With a sigh of resolute indignancy, he closed the distance in one stride, and shoved a flacky peice of meat into his mouth. If it was poisoned, he could always chuck the rest out the airlock-

An ancient swear word cut through the air...

And the Avatar of Vengeance wondered where this stuff had been his whole life.

* * *

 _Have fun guessing who left it!^^_

 _And seafood does **rock** , I think this is something at least most of us can agree on. I thought 'might as well start with Javik, get His Grumpiness out of the way', but let me know if there's anyone you'd prefer to see next!_

 _Fare Thee Well!_


	2. Grunt

The young krogan was in a fit. He spent ten minutes trying to get the terminal to work again.

When nothing worked, he pounded his fist on the interface projector, and threw it across the room when the previous action caused it to break. He stood up and paced, looking for something to throw, a growl rising in his throat.

 _Shepard told you not to throw anything._ That was it! Shepard could solve this problem!

Bursting with new confidence, he picked up the broken terminal, and strode out of Port Cargo, leaving the lights dim.

* * *

Minutes later, Commander Shepard woke with a start as something massive loomed over his bed. he yelped, reaching simultaneously for his light and his sidearm, and barely managed to stop from shooting Grunt.

"What the-"

"Fix it." the young krogan demanded, tossing a broken terminal on the bed. Shepard blinked stupidly at it, then the clock, and back again, and then to Grunt once more.

"It's the middle of the night, Grunt." he said slowly.

"But you can fix it, can't you, Battlemaster?" the krogan plopped down on the floor with his arms crossed.

"It's snapped in half."

"Well, you can use omnigel for that, right?"

"The heck you do to it?"

"..."

"Grunt?"

"Stepped on it. It wouldn't play 'The Old Man and the Sea'. I was halfway done!"

"Can't this wait until tomorrow?" the Commander groaned, throwing himself back on his pillow.

"No." Grunt demanded. "I'm at the part where Santiago has to fight the sharks. That's the best part!"

"Wait, if you've heard this story before, why the heck do you need to hear it again?" Shepard asked, casting the ground team's largest member a raised eyebrow.

"I listen to it every night." Come to think of it, he couldn't remember the last time he slept without it...

" _Fine_!" Shepard let out a gusty sigh, and climbed out of bed. Grunt stood as he marched over to his desk, where all kinds of 'tech bits' lay scattered around, along with gun mods and several half-finished model ships.

* * *

Garrus nearly jumped out of his hide when he felt the meaty hands shake him awake. He opened his mouth, brain still deciding if he was going to scream 'boarding party' or let his gizzard yap, and the same hand clapped over his jaw, pinning his mandibles.

"Shhhhhh! Dude, it's _us_!" Shepard's voice hissed in the dark. Garrus blinked in the darkness, relaxing slightly when he recognized Shepard and Grunt's forms outlined by the faint lights of the Main Battery. The krogan was the one pinning his mouth shut, and Shepard was in his nightclothes. He took Grunt's wrist and moved it forcibly.

"What the hell, Shepard!?" He hissed in a low voice. Nighttime ambush? Not cool.

He hoped nobody else would get the same idea, he might actually wind up shooting someone one day...

"I fixed Grunt's terminal, but it still won't turn on." the human looked... sheepish. That was odd; Shepard was always so sure of himself...

"He calibrated the damn thing wrong." Grunt added. "Now I can't listen to Earnest Hemingway."

Garrus fixed his best friend with a stare that said, quite clearly, 'you're kidding me, right?'

"Hey, we all make mistakes!"

* * *

 _Because we need some runt fluff to take the edge off of Javik's chapter. I found it funny that he likes Earnest Hemingway, and I could easily see him listening to it at night; for the longest time, I actually fell asleep to Harry Potter or Narnia audio books._

 _fan fic fan 759: You wrote half your review in spanish, but I'll give this a try! I already have plan for both Legion and Tali, sadly, and Garrus is the one who loves music. If you review again, would you like me to put reply's in spanish(can't speak for the reliability of google translate, but if you could read it easier, i'd totally do it)_

 _Celtic Knot: Glad you think so! Never thought I'd see the day where anyone told me something involving Javik was 'cute'... I like to think I'm good at writing him by now, since I've included him in so much of my fiction. I'm inexplicably drawn to grumpy characters because they're a challenge._

 _MisterDarkness200: Glad you think so!_

 _Not sure who to do next... probably going to be Garrus._

 _Fare Thee Well!_


	3. Tali

She didn't know why it bothered her so much. I mean, did it really matter what it meant? What it _specifically_ meant? That little tilt of Garrus' head, combined with a slight raising of the crest of spikes on his head? Such a thing had never bothered her before... but... given their conversation...

"So... you and that Kal'Reegar, huh?" the turian had teased, after the trial. Correction; the trial where Reegar had boldly declared that if Tali was exiled, he would march right out the door alongside her. After all the hell of this trial, and her father... here was Garrus, _teasing_ her, at the very moment they were back on the Normandy!

The conversation was short, it anything.

"Ugh, blow off Vakarian!" she snapped, cheeks growing hot. "Kal and I aren't together! I'm not interested in him! Besides, I'm pretty sure no-one deserves him."

That was when Garrus made that look. That tilt, the slightly raised crest, a tiny flick of his right mandible(though that could have been a muscle spasm, considering his injuries). Then he raised his hands in surrender, made a mumble of 'kidding', and left, helmet still tucked under one arm.

And for some reason, that bothered her, not knowing what that meant, exactly. She sighed heavily. She'd patched a small breach in her suit that had happened during the Alarei; maybe it was the small fever making her think like this? She tapped on her console absentmindedly.

With their faces covered all the time, quarians as a species relied on body language to express themselves. She'd watched a video on human body language when she first joined the original Normandy, so lost she'd felt on the alien ship. But she'd never really read up on turians... or asari, or drell, or any of the other alien inhabitants. There were just so many humans on the Normandy, and she didn't really know anyone from the ground team that well(yet; Thane was pretty nice).

But Garrus? She'd known him since the SR1. He'd changed, keelah, he'd changed. There was still that sass, that sarcasm, that dry, witty humor. But he was... darker. More dangerous. He still lacked a brain-to-mouth filter, but the things he said weren't as provocative as they'd been two years ago. And some of the things she'd seen him do? Going after Sidonis the way he had? Two years; that was all it had taken to completely change the rash, trigger-happy, sometimes borderline racist young C-Sec officer into someone capable of acting with ice in their blood.

She'd tried not to feel guilty about that. About the fact he'd been through hell on Omega, but she couldn't read half his body language. That, and it would be really good to know that movement had an underlying meaning, like if he, say, liked her or someth-

Whoa; where'd _that_ line of thinking come from? She shook her head, and brought up her omnitool. Yup, it was definitely the fever messing with her. The fever was why her face suddenly felt so hot.

None the less, she managed to find a video on turian body language, and she watched it the moment she had free time.

* * *

 _Saw in the Shadow Broker Dossiers that Tali watched videos on understanding body language, came up with the head canon that that's what Quarians rely on for communication. Just a hint of pre-Talibrations in here for you as well._

 _seabo7: Grunt, I love him!^^ My widdle tank baby! And sorry to say, but it was actually Shepard who left Javik that little 'gift'. The man looks after his crew; even the grumpy ones!_

 _Celtic Knot: Lol. As the eldest of four siblings, I have experiences similar situations as well. My bro would sneak into my room and we'd get into late-night sumo-wrestler fights. As such, we were the only kids in the neighborhood whose mother had to tell them off for sparring at one in the morning._

 _TheXGrayXLady: Huh, never thought about the tank stuff. I just saw he listened to earnest Hemmingway and thought it would be cute. *shrug* unintentional gold strike it is, then._

 _fan fic fan 759: Good! I took four years of spanish class and still can't speak it. The only foreign languages I've had success with are elfish and Klingon, and sadly, fantasy languages don't qualify on your resume... would be cool if they did, though._

 _I totally thought I would do Garrus next, but I didn't. I just finished replaying Tali's loyalty mission, and got struck by inspiration. Just so ya'll know; I'm starting to post some of my stuff on Ao3 as well. Not sure if that will continue for long, but I decided to give it a shot. I've got Challange Accepted and Losing Time on there for now, Out of Tricks may be next._

 _Fare Thee Well!_


	4. Legion

ByAn00b: Stop messing around! Get the crystal!

Infiltrat0rN7: Shaxx-quill3'0neil is in closer proximity to the crystal.

ByAn00b: Stop taunting in the capture zone and get the crystal!

Infiltrat0rN7: That would be tactically unwise.

Suddenly, all connections to the game were lost, and all the geth's runtimes jumped into action to somehow recover the extranet connection, or save the game. All 1,183 of them failed to do either, and the day's play data was lost. Physically, Legion's only reaction was to flick several of it's eye plate in a waving motion that, to organics, might have made it looked 'annoyed'.

Internally, Legion was doing a scan for local extranet ports. Next to it, Kasumi Goto had made an odd, disappointed whining noise, while Garrus Vakarian and Commander Shepard both made identical 'kh' sounds of frustration, the turian's mandibles flicking out in annoyance.

"Well, so much for quality of life." he sighed. "What's with the extranet, anyway?"

The establishment Crewman Hawthorne has parked the shuttle outside of has fluctuating extranet capacities, resulting in lag and 404 error codes on data storage sites." Legion announced.

"What?" Grunt asked, clearly fathoming over the 'large words' used in the sentence as he munched(inhaled) the food they'd gotten. None the less, they were all surprised when the geth answered with what might have been the ghost of annoyance or frustration in it's mechanized timbre.

"Fish Dog Food Shack contains 'Mcdonalds' Wi-Fi."

* * *

 _I couldn't help myself. The thought of Legion being mad about losing extranet service struck me when I got kicked to Destiny 2's title screen yesterday with one of it's most hated error codes; Marionberry._

 _With Legion being an in-closet video-gamer, I thought a relate able one-shot was in order._

 _Celtic Knot: I know, right? Playing ME1 you would never think it, but they're basically perfect for each other; Tali keeps Garrus in check, and Garrus makes sure they get decent dextro food aboard, lol. I know; I thought a few comments about his change in character were in order. Out of all the characters in ME, he changes the most, and makes the biggest journey. We were given an insensitive, rash brat in ME1, and came out with a tactical genius and friend above all by ME3._

 _seabo76: yeah, like I said, he went through a lot of changes._

 _Well, nothing much to say other than A Out of Tricks update might be in the works here soon._

 _Fare Thee Well!_


	5. Joker

"Welcome aboard, Specter Kyrik." Anderson welcomed as the turian walked out of decon.

"Pleasure to see her, Captain, fresh paint and all." Nihlus nodded. He was armed to the teeth, and carried only a small rucksack; Specters traveled light.

"Please, right this way." Anderson motioned to the CIC. A tense silence hung in the air. Anderson didn't like keeping things from his crew, and Nihlus was asking him to keep things from his XO. The XO that was currently giving them odd looks, much like the rest of the CIC staff.

"This ship- named after a battle, I here?" Nihlus attempted to calm the atmosphere as they made their way to the QEC.

"The Battle of Normandy was arguably the deciding battle of World War II."Anderson told him. "Your people wanted to name it after a battle, ours wanted to name it after a country. Admiral Hackett... 'compromised'."

"I like him." Nihlus smirked as they walked into the room. Both men froze.

On the screen was Beyonce's music video for 'All The Single Ladies'.

* * *

"Joker, we're on our way down to the shuttle, deck is yours."

 _"Did you actually manage to et everyone into that tiny elevator?"_ the pilot asked incredulously.

"No, Joker, it's just me and-"

He didn't wait for her to finish. He played the recording through the elevator link, and Shepard, Miranda, Thane and Legion were all subjected to 'All the Single Ladies'.

* * *

A live prothean. Hackett was going to have a field day.

An armed escort met them on the Normandy, and he staggered slightly as he exited the shuttle. The time-tossed biotic looked around with a skeptical, almost disgusted look on his face. Shepard had known him for all of five minutes and already didn't like the guy's attitude. Waking up to find you were the last of your species? That gave him some leeway, but not enough to condone giving everybody the stink eye(Liara in particular).

The only thing that could make this worse was-

'All the Single Ladies'.

Shepard let a heavy sigh hiss through his teeth, and buried his face in one hand as the elevator went up. Some of the escort snickered, while one or two, plus Javik, just looked confused. Liara looked at the Commander, exasperated.

"He's _still_ doing that!?"

* * *

 _Because Joker would totally do it. And because I keep telling myself I'll do Garrus, but never get around to it._

 _TheXGreyXLady: #gamerproblems I KNOW SO RIGHT!?_

 _whotellsyourstory: You think this is the best I can do? I think the mental images I gave in this chapter topped Legion's, personally._

 _seabo76: yes, it's gamer for 'everything I kill comes back with full health'._

 _fan fic fan 759: The lag always strike at the worst possible moment... the stories, the horrors I have witnessed in co-op...*shudders*_

 _You are all VERY welcome for this chapter. Also, don't ask why I chose All the Single Ladies. Just don't. Because I don't even know myself and I'm to drain bamaged to think of a proper excuse._

 _Fare Thee Well!_


End file.
